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By Allan Dowd
VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Trackers expert at finding human quarry returned to an island off Canada's Pacific coast Wednesday to search for a man feared left behind after more than 100 Chinese boat people were airlifted to safety last week.
As they searched, Canadian immigration authorities began detention hearings for 131 boat people already in custody, including 43 unaccompanied minors. Officials want the people held as they ascertain how many qualify as potential refugees and how many should be quickly deported.
Officials originally said 78 of the boat people faced quick deportation as illegal economic immigrants, but are reviewing 20 of those cases where requests to be considered for refugee status were allegedly overlooked.
The rest of the group has reportedly sought refugee status.
Canada allows refugee claimants to remain in the country while a lengthy review process unfolds -- a practice that has come a hot political issue with the arrival of two smuggling ships of boat people from China in less than a month.
Police acknowledge they still do not know where last week's boat intended to land its human cargo on Canada's rugged western coast, and what kind organization the smugglers had in place to collect the men, women and children when they arrived.
The second boat dumped the people on August 11, just off Kunghit Island, an unpopulated island on the southern tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands chain. Most of the people were airlifted to safety by authorities the same day.
A follow-up search of island Thursday found four men who had attempted to avoid detection. But the boat people have reported in subsequent interviews with immigration officials that a man is still missing.
``What reason would they have for being forthcoming with that information unless it was true,'' said Constable Tracey Rook of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which has several search teams on the isolated island.
Authorities suspect the smugglers decided to drop the immigrants on the island, which is nearly 200 km (120 miles) off the British Columbia coast, in an attempt avoid capture when they discovered they were under surveillance
Rook said police investigating the smuggling operation have been able to interview only half of the immigrants, and that the process has been slowed down because officers cannot talk to the unaccompanied minors until they get legal guardians.
The immigrants are being held at a military base near Victoria, the capital of the Canadian province.
The initial boat people to face detention hearings Wednesday were ordered
held another week, but an attorney for several of them said he would appeal the
decision to a federal court.
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